Why does it seem like Americans have become so hateful and destructive in the past years?
So I'm European and am aware that American culture is very different in many ways. Idk if this is just some type of thing about American culture and mentality in general that has always been there or if it is a trend that started recently in the past few years.
I don't wanna generalize any country and know that not everyone is like this but I definitely noticed this type of pattern.
I increasingly noticed in the past years that many Americans are very hateful/cruel, are lacking empathy, become more and more aggressive and it seems like it’s becoming worse.
I'm not sure if this is maybe related to Americans needing to be "though" or something because I always hear about that the American mentality is pretty competitive and individualistic and instead of saying "we will go through this this together" they often have this mentality "it's either me or you but it can't be both who will win".
I mean I'm pretty sure that all these things like this biking culture, driving big "manly" pick up trucks, wrestling, football etc. are pretty prevalent in America compared to other countries and American culture generally seems very loud and direct. I think here in Europe people are way more reserved and I guess the strongest opposite to Americans are probably Japanese people. Maybe American culture is generally more "rough" where they aren't super sensitive and don't really care how their words come over and just speak their mind (maybe cause they value free speech so much).
But to me this seems to go to the point where many Americans seem to have this attitude and are very ignorant and arrogant and basically think they're better than anyone else and they only care for themselves.
And it feels like it's so extreme to the point where everyone is hating, attacking and bashing on everyone and instead of being stronger united they're just fighting against themselves and putting each other down and they always focus on the negative.
Especially online it seems like that no matter what the topic is and independent from whether they are Democrat or Republican they're constantly bashing on someone and baselessly calling them "weak" even though in reality they're probably the ones who are weak and trample onto people cause they're obviously dissatisfied with themselves and aren't able to man-up to face the real issues. You just can't blame everything on others and have to take responsibility for yourself!
Some stuff that I've seen on American news like "Fox News" just seemed crazy where the reporters personally attack and bash on people which is something that would be unthinkable in Europe.
Even though many people were saying that Americans have this "fake friendliness" I'm thinking that even that disappeared in the last few years and they're becoming more open to show what they really think which seems to be that they "don't give a f* about you".
Many Americans that I encountered seem so aggressive like they always need to bash onto something in this toxic way even though they're actually in a very good position and have a lot to be grateful for. Like in other poor countries people have real problems and are literally starving because they have no food or they have war in their country.
I'm always thinking "dude, you need to chill" cause literally no one is attacking them and they're fully secure. But it seems like they're always searching for a fight or something.
It seems like many of these people are so disconnected from nature and become less human and I wonder why they can't just spend meaningful time with other people being positive and not constantly waste their time with hating or complaining about something. Because this just doesn't work and in a society with multiple people especially in a world where everything is more connected than ever we need to hold together and have empathy for one and another. That is one of the core morals that a human needs!
It seems like many Americans generally have this "cruelness" about them cause I also heard things that many Americans are physically beating their children and even the fact that guns are popular and legal in America to the point where you can't even safely walk alone in public during the night or safely send your kid to school and also this general mindset of America is doing everything the best and "America first". I really don't wanna bash on Americans at all and only want to share my experience because I just haven't experienced this type of hate here in Europe in that extreme way and it just makes me very uncomfortable because I feel like this mood is affecting the whole world since American media and influence is prevalent everywhere.
To me it feels like this won't end well and it feels like it's just a matter of time until something very bad happens like the second civil war or so and the storm on the capitol might be nothing compared to that. But maybe that's the only way they will finally learn if they're lacking these core morals and integrity and they don't get educated about that in school.
It also seems like they can't handle critique and can't admit it/stand to those things. When I once asked a similar question on Reddit the only thing I got back was bashing and personal attacks and I hope it's not the same here, cause that is literally just proving my point. There needs to be constructive discussions.
We've had a couple of reports about this post, but I'm going to let it slide for the moment because the discussion seems mostly respectful. Let's keep it polite though please.
Here's my attempt to explain this in as few words as possible:
American Exceptionalism is imploding.
...
Longer explanation:
From a cultural narrative/myth standpoint, a whole lot of us were trained and taught to believe that 'America is the best country in the world'.
This was the source of our national optimism, our national belief that we can achieve anything we decide to do, that we are the force for good in the world, that we can be the shining city on the hill, the role model, the 'good guy'.
You can interpret that in different ways, its flexible enough to hold true within the Overton Window of 'acceptable' political viewpoints.
But the problem is that it has become increasingly obvious that this myth is a complete lie nowadays, that it was built on a false, sanitized version of history, which itself was perpetuated by our education system and popular media until very recently.
So at a group scale... this is the national myth, and its been obliterated, so now... we as a collective have just splintered into highly polarized factions.
At an individual scale, American Exceptionalism means that you as an individual live in 'The land of opportunity', ie, we live in a meritocratic society that rewards good character, good intentions, diligent work and study with a life of wealth amd freedom superior to what can be achieved elsewhere.
But, as our economic systems have become consolidated, our political systems have eroded to naked oligarchy, its now clear to the individual that... what was promised to be obtainable to any one, now basically isn't: class/income mobility is so bad now that we basically actually live in a classed society of hereditary nobility, determined by wealth. They just don't have titles like Duke or Baron, they have titles of Executive Director, CEO and Member of the Board.
... Our egos cannot accept this, and internalize it as a personal failure, and express it outwardly as everyone else's failure.
Deep down, we were supposed to be able to be successful if we put in the work.
A whole lot of people did put in the work, and most of them got fucked.
So we are angry about that, and most of us carry that chip on our shoulder, that we've all been scammed.
But we don't agree on why we've been scammed, how we've been scammed, or how this should be addressed.
...
I concur with you that this will not end well.
We are a fracturing, dying empire, a third world country with a gucci belt, and we elected a racist rapist facist conman.
And we have more privately owned guns than people.
...
I agree with many other posters that social media prioritizing ostentacious wealth and bravado / dominance displays certainly does not help, but I'm going with the 'American Exceptionalism Imploding' explanation to attempt to explain how Americans in particular, compared to other nations, are becoming so vicious and hostile so rapidly.
...
Sure would have been nice if people realized 20 years ago that Carlin was not joking whatsoever when he said:
"They call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it."
Crazy - am I the only one who was always taught the places we let our goals down? Who was taught all the idealized mythology around the US are goals? You don’t get happiness, you get the right to pursue it. You don’t get success, you get the opportunity to try. You don’t get equality, you get to fight for equality.
My ancestors migrated to the US over a century ago and were very white, so we do have it easier than some. But the point is to recognize that. To fight to make the American dream a possibility for everyone
My ancestor strongly believed in a good education, such that he insisted all his kids goto college even though they became farmers. Now I’m in a position that I can help my kids goto college, but the American dream includes that all kids have the opportunity. Just like my ancestor arriving penniless illiterate, not speaking the language and with no family - those people too should have the opportunity for a good education. Being able to afford a good education is not a lie, it’s a goal, and it’s in all our best interest as a society to make it so
If “make America great again” had any truth in it, it would be to believe in our goals again, and work toward achieving them. Relight that dim, flickering torch and stoke those embers to become the America we’ve told ourselves we can be
Our standard of living is collapsing and we have no way out because all of our media is controlled by billionaires, all our politicians are controlled by billionaires, the economy is controlled by billionaires, our entertainment is controlled by billionaires. This is what the billionaires want, so it's what the billionaires get. I'm probably about to lose my hrt and could soon find myself in financial ruin because Texas is trying to establish bounty laws that'd allow people to sue trans people and doctors who offer gender affirming care. Healthcare costs are out of control as well. It cost me $300 for a single appointment at planned parenthood to start hrt. My therapist, who I see weekly, costs over $200 a session. Insurance will not cover either one, because it doesn't see either one as being medically necessary.
It fucking sucks, yo. "That's just how life is" is becoming my mantra. Quite honestly, I'm not sure I'll ever find a place where I'll feel safe, secure and supported. I don't think trans people get to have all three, nor will we ever.
The underlying cause you're looking for is wealth inequality.
The vast majority of people are worker drones. We will work hard all of our lives in unsatisfying jobs with minimal leisure time, and if we get really lucky we can stop work for a few years before we die when we're too sick to work any more.
This general discontent will manifest in hatred in one way or another. Social media is channelling it into different things but the underlying cause is the same.
While I fully agree and am very afraid of the current developments this answer kind of comes off as "you too" which feels like a try to belittle the issue.
There's a lot of context missing in this, like the USA having the biggest army and privately owned guns, just to name one thing.
This is also what it feels like living here. America teaches everyone that everything is a zero sun game and you can't get anywhere without putting someone else down. Community is not something most people value, instead preferring isolationism. There's also a major lack of education.
Funny how people are huge fans of capitalism saying it generates wealth for everyone while thats the actual zero sum game. They worship the ultra-rich and dont realize every dollar one of them makes comes out of their pockets.
can't even safely walk alone in public during the night or safely send your kid to school
This isn't true, the media just makes it look that way. The instances of school shooting are very dramatic, but statistically, your kid is in more danger on the drive to school than from a school shooting.
Statistically, US children's non-health related mortality causes are sitting with firearm deaths at #1 and vehicle related deaths at #2. That said, it's not just school shootings for the firearm deaths, so they're more likely to die in a car crash to and from school, but firearms overall throughout their lives.
Both of these categories are climbing year to year, with firearms growing faster than car deaths.
Overall, cars are the third highest reason US adults die after cancer and heart issues.
I know someone who moved to America. I think she's living there for over 10 years now and she basically told me the opposite that she always thought the media was exaggerating this but when she moved there she actually experienced multiple shootings (where they were evacuated in school and she even heard gunshots in her neighborhood) which made her to not go alone anymore.
In Europe the concept of owning a gun alone seems unimaginable.
Just going to add my own anecdotal experience to the mix; I’ve lived in the northeast US for my whole life. I also used to be a teacher. I’ve never once been a victim or bystander to gun violence. Now I am in a spot of the US with more strict gun laws, but I have also lived in places with laws that are more lax.
I live in Texas, I've never had a gun go off near me outside of a gun range or rural area (where it's legal and acceptable). Anecdotal experiences can be wild, right?
From NEJM 2018 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsr1804754
Motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death for children and adolescents, representing 20% of all deaths; firearm-related injuries were the second leading cause of death, responsible for 15% of deaths.
Most of those firearm deaths aren't school shootings. Sending your kid to play at a friend's house where the parents have guns is a reasonable concern. Being afraid to send your kid to school every day because of a mass shooter is much less reasonable.
The more time spent angry the more active and larger the amygdala gets.
So now when in a situation the amygdala is calling the shoots, and it's either calling for blood or for you to run.
It's how we evolved, if we're surrounded by anger, fear, and confrontation we switch over to a mode that can handle that.
The current problem is fearmongering and billionaire ran media that keeps telling everyone to panic, so they do.
People get in this state from the media, interact with others and it spreads. Society as we know it is incredibly recent on an evolutionary scale, so it is often shocking how fast we can slide back to people who are thinking on a short timeline where 20 years is "forever ago".
That's not even getting into wealth inequality and how resource scarceness while young can fuck someone up for life.
I can corroborate, anecdotally, the behavioral side of this.
When I have conversations with notoriously angry people and can maintain my chill and treat them with dignity (despite whatever behavior they're exhibiting), they usually chill out. The more of angry person they are takes more effort, but patience, calm, and respect diffuse things very effectively. The patience is really hard, but it has worked for me.
The problem, which is relevant to the physical changes you described, is that the effect is only temporary in isolation. I have found the repeating this over time with a person does cause their baseline anger level to reduce over time, but it's a fuckton of work and difficult to scale due to the time commitment. It also doesn't scale via media because this kind of behavior doesn't draw attention. It's an unfortunate bug in our psychology
My ideas are similar to a couple of other comments, but maybe I'll phrase them in a way that unites them and is easy to understand. Let's see.
American exceptionalism is deeply ingrained in culture and associated with patriotism. See reciting the pledge of allegiance in schools. This includes the concept of the American dream: working hard = good life.
I'm not sure if the US was ever like that, but it's certainly not like that now. The key thing is that it's becoming more evident if you pay attention. There's a rift between people paying attention and people not paying attention. The people paying attention have discarded the American dream and maybe even exceptionalism, but those not paying attention have not. Additionally/alternatively, people may see different reasons for the American dream no longer being valid.
So you kind of have 2 + N camps. One camp still believes in American exceptionalism and the American dream and gets pissed that other people are seemingly trying to change/ruin it. One camp believes these concepts are dead and blames on various systems that need changing. (More on that later.) N camps believe these concepts are dead because of <insert media bias here>, e.g. blacks, Muslims, communists, foreigners, pick your poison. Sadly, this last group is the most visible because they're the most rage-inducing.
So the first and last sets mentioned above provide pretty clear reasons for anger: either frustrations at what should be fellow Americans in solidarity or bigots. The systems people also have a reason to be angry: the systems are well entrenched via various methods, and it's unclear how to start untangling the mess. Some blame billionaires. Some blame politics. Some blame both. But even if there's agreement about which problem is the highest priority, people get frustrated about conflict around potential solutions or the general inability to acquire focus on solutions due to the sheer number of them.
Combine all of this with an economic squeeze on standard of living, the rage-bait nature of social media and mainstream media, psychological negative bias, and just general (unfortunate) virtuous cycles, and you get a recipe for an ever growing angry society.
The people with the most ability to fix this have no incentive to. The people in power benefit from the current system. An angry and divided population is easier to manipulate and control. It also helps that the US is very geographically large, making physical threats less of an issue (except for CEO assassinations, I guess).
Lastly, the internet fucks us. Research shows (normally I'd cite sources, but I gotta get back to work in a minute. Internet points to whomever can find the source and share) that the social media echo chambers aren't actually the problem. People can be very open to new ideas depending on the presentation and the source. We already had echo chances of geography before the internet, and people were generally more trusting of the people physically nearby, even if their ideas differed. The problem is the anonymity of the internet, the volume of conflicting/unfamiliar ideas, and the way they're presented (e.g. rage-bait). Given that Americans are spending more time on the internet, they're exposed to more seemingly madness from crazy strangers and sometimes associate even the people around them with those crazy online strangers. We group them into these tribes and define them as the enemy. When we start recognizing that these people could be our neighbors, societal trust plummets. When you can't trust the people around you, how are you supposed to relax and feel safe? If you feel like you're always in psychological or physical danger, won't you be more prone to anger and defensiveness?
The media everywhere knows that showing people who are on an extreme gets more views. So that is what you will see from outside. As for the people you have meet. The chill people don't travel as much.
You have every right to be worried, the American empire is in decline and its ruling class is becoming increasingly fascist. This is reflected in public and online discourse and you have clearly taken notice. I would note though that what you see on FOX news is not followed by much of the younger generations. This is not to say that reactionaries do not exist amongst our youth, they certainly do and they have a fervor to them as well. They simply follow more contemporary fascist like Shapiro, Peterson, Fuentes, and billionaires like Musk. As well as manosphere content more often than not.
It is worth noting though that leftist political movements are growing rapidly too. We are at quite the disadvantage though.
The problem is confirmation bias. Americans are actually becoming more left-leaning and accepting. Younger generations are rejecting the hateful & destructive legacy of the US, and spreading this ideology to each other, which is exactly why the government is trying to ban TikTok. Just look at military recruitment numbers. Look at how well leftism and anti-imperialism performs in polling among people younger than boomers and Gen X.
But as communist theorists predicted would happen, as the population moves left the capitalists in power move further right and embrace fascism to entrench their power.
Leftism is spreading faster than fascism, but fascists do not threaten capital, so they’re not censored. Thus you see far higher representation of far-right fascism in the news and in positions of power, because that’s all they want you to see and the only people they allow into power. It tricks you into believing these ideals are gaining in popularity, when in reality it’s over representation of fascism by systems that don’t really oppose it.
For example, the majority of Americans support ending US funding of the genocide in Gaza. But if all you see is what’s allowed on the news and what the people in power support, you’d believe there’s overwhelming support in the US for the genocide. In reality, they’re increasing the police budgets to violently suppress criticism of the empire.
I only read the first half of your post because it was kind of meandering, but most of what you're seeing is just online. People have always been assholes online, ever since the early days of the internet. There are a lot of very intentional, very engineered agendas out there to drive people apart, and set them at each other's throats. This is hyper effective on the internet. It doesn't usually carry over into the real world. Most Americans I know, meet, or see in real life are still friendly, caring, and generous. Just go read about European impressions of Americans after returning from vacation to the USA and you'll see that same sentiment echoed from people on your side of the pond. There are certainly people who have taken their online persona offline into their real world identities, but they're the exception, not the rule.
TLDR: the internet is not the real world and you'll see the worst of people online, combined with a fair bit of propaganda and astroturfing.
Exactly this. If you are starting to feel like the world, or a particular people, are excessively negative and hateful, you’re almost certainly spending too much time online.
I think that you hit it pretty close to being in point. The Americans I know are same as you nice good people, but that entire country is based on "I got mine so screw you" and they honestly believe that the American dream is still achievable, but it isn't, they think that they are closer to a millionaire or billionaire than their own neighbors. Trickle down economics was a lie and the fact that shareholders are the end all and be all of industry.
Who can you screw over to get ahead, most of the time it is the owners (investors) screwing over the workers.
They have poor education systems (some better than others for a price) so people are unable to think critically about what they're being told, then allow business to essentially buy the government this is the result.
The entire system globally is busted. I have no idea how to get it back in shape where people are important to having a healthy society.
I'm rambling so I'll stop (not even sure what I wrote makes sense).
But a picture is worth 100 words (used to be a 1000 but inflation ☹️)
It's not so much Americans as online discourse that's soured in this way. Day-to-day IRL people are no more aggressive or hateful than they've always been.
But online? I don't know whether to blame botting or the effect described by the John Gabriel Internet Fuckwad Theorem, but it's bad out there. The only cure is a well-curated whitelist.
TLDR The US is a mafia-esque arms dealer / financial scam that masquerades as a “moral democracy”. Capital won in America, and this is what happens.
Each person is not a member of a society or community, but is a competitor. We are atomized, severed from our families and communities and increasingly told we are commodities ourselves. This strategy works in favor of central power as it actively works to erode the ties between people, and that makes them isolated and unable to band together as easily.
Sure there’s individualism and other toxic mythologies that play some part, but the country has increasingly become a corrupt business that serves its board of directors and not its employees. I’m sure there are countless moments where you could make an argument that this process went into overdrive, for me it’s around Regan and after and the various policies that led to destruction of unions, led to offshoring and functionally turned the US into a financialized service economy. Maybe that’s just coincidence and the real cause was the collapse of the USSR, like I said there’s probably many moments/causal events one could make a reasonable argument for.
What we have now: some clown dimension right wing that would like to legalize sport hunting immigrants and the homeless while fire sale busting out the entire US govt, and a bloodless “liberal” center-right that merely wants to criminalize, imprison and then work for profit the people the right would like to sport-hunt, while funneling money to their friends and family. Both are fine with genocide, provided the weapons proceeds end up in the correct place. Those two political fronts represent a section of the populace that is likely less than .01%.
Media and online interactions play up the differences in US society. They run deep (their civil war, the difference between Democrat and Republican states, racial tensions), but I don't think they're as significant as your post suggests.
American culture generally seems very loud and direct. I think here in Europe people are way more reserved
I've worked with people from the US, Germans, and Finns. Generally the Germans and Finns have been more direct.
I also heard things that many Americans are physically beating their children
It's a big country. I'm sure a few are, just like a few Europeans beat their kids, but generally no. I would check your sources on that.
When I once asked a similar question on Reddit the only thing I got back was bashing and personal attacks and I hope it's not the same here
Your statements and questions seem to reference the worst that we see of the US in social media and mainstream news. For someone who lives in the US (or is cynical), they could come across as trolling.
many Americans are physically beating their children
I think it really depends on what you define as beating. Spanking was incredibly common in the South 20-30 years ago and 10 I would have said it's still fairly common (and by south, my experience was in central Florida, parts of which actually are deep south). I'm glad it's become less common because it actually is physically beating a child and shouldn't be acceptable. But I'd say it still is.
As a trans man, I've found that one of the more horrifying nominally gendered childhood things that I share with way too many cis men is the trauma of the line if you don't stop crying I'll give you something to cry about. It's fucked up.
The real answer is they've been conditioned. They have so much excess, but rather than funnel that excess to those who need it, they all decide to hoard it and use it to gain as much more excess as possible.
They're greedy. They're entitled. They're insecure. It's a bad combination.
Responding aggressively to a post asking why it appears that American culture has become more aggressive and hateful is not helping as much as you think.
Aggressively? How is "typical answer" aggressive? I think calling me stereotyping, an asshole and "snooty, judgmental and condescending euro-prick" is aggressive.
Typical answer. I wasn't trying to stereotype but just share my experience. I haven't experienced this type of hate here in Europe and it was a noticeable difference for me. But of course you are very welcomed to share your bad experiences with Europeans with us as long as it's constructive.
Don't be an asshole, lmao. You complain about Americans being bloodthirsty fucks and then you turn around and act like the typical "snooty, judgmental and condescending euro-prick" stereotype we have here in the states.
The reason why I'm engaging with you is because you're not wrong, America has become extremely angry and bloodthirsty. However, that doesn't give you an excuse to be condescending about it.
It's the old trope ... the perception of the future gets worse for some group and then society fractures into people that are willing to take ownership and do something about it vs people that accept polarized answers that "it's not their fault, they've been treated unfairly, and the other guy caused all their problems."
Once you have a significant portion of people blaming "the other" society just stops working right and fights with itself. In many cases it's self imposed, but social media has added fuel to the fire and festered and inflamed old wounds (with the help of foreign governments seeking to do just that).
We have half of society blaming liberals, gays, blacks, the poor, the colleges, and immigrants. Then we have the other half of society blaming conservatives, christians, old white men, the rich, hillbillies, and the uneducated.
Frankly, we all need to take a chill pill and realize most people want to be left alone to do their own thing. Then we need to sit down at the table and look at which politicians are building bridges and which politicians are burning them. Most of us want similar things, we've just been conditioned to focus on our differences.
People think they have to beat other people at some imagined game to be happy, and forget the game was ever imagined in the first place. It's a delusion.
It's not so much that Americans are like this in general, there are always people like this and people who are opposite from this in any county, America included. But because of social media, the voice of specifically this kind of people get magnified and appeared much louder than the voice of people not like this.
Many American ran social media (those offered by Meta especially) are specifically designed this way because they operate in such a way where engagement generate ad revenues, and conflicts, destructive and otherwise rage inducing content are the most effective ways for generating engagement on the internet in general. Unfortunately over a course of lack of regulatory actions they have perfected a balance between as much rage inducing content as possible and not too much destructiveness to a point where they get into legal troubles.
I'm not American but I think the current wave of ugliness is because Obama was elected, and conservative people who are racist in their hearts didn't like that an "uppity Negro" was in the most powerful position in the world for eight years, and they couldn't come up with anyone palatable to beat him. So instead they found who is probably the most obnoxious person in the world to put at the helm of their party, and because conservatives have oppositional defiant disorder, and get off on someone being like they are openly, they flocked to him loudly, where more traditional conservative politicians knocked in vain, and it was just a chance for them to really be themselves. I think they've always been this way, but just not as loud about it.
Also Zuckface fuckface fed them a steady diet of weaponized disinformation about anyone who wasn't white or Republican so it made them even uglier and stupider. But they'll probably all die of preventable disease as time goes on, so that's something to look forward to.
This "they're just racists" theory is now comprehensively debunked. White-trash Indiana voted for Obama, and now brown people of all types are rushing into Trump's arms.
If America's progressives stick to this disastrous race essentialism, the Democrats are going to lose and lose and lose again. You need to snap out of it for the sake of the rest of the world.
Well I'm not American so it only matters to me in that the orange rapist wants to annex my country, but I did note that people had lynching effigies of Obama when he was elected hanging in their yards and stuff, so. I'm fine with being wrong if you say this is so, it's just my observation.
It might explain a few things if this was an American thing, as I have experienced similar things as well, and I don't know why either. Though in my case few of them identify as American.
I'm technically American, but America wants me dead. As such, I do not voluntarily identify as American anymore. Dunno if that's what they're referring to, but ye.
America was built on a very fruitful land, the new comers had a lot of room to expand.
There weren’t any existing powers to stifle growth so it was “free” to grow as much as possible (this is what they mean by freedom).
The gold rush happened in California, then a lot (and I mean A LOT for its time) of oil production.
Then Europe had a couple of civil wars (I’m calling it that cause they fought themselves mostly) which gave US even more of an advantage.
The American experiment has had A LOT privileges because it was the new world. Those are ending but Americans believe they can keep the party going forever.
Europe had a similar boost during colonial times and that ended too, so chances are it will happen to US too.
Only two questions remain:
Will it be as bloody as possible like WWII or more peaceful.
Will Americans get their shit together after like Europe and form a strong union built on democracy.
The dumbest most faithful people in the country have had their religious institutions influenced by Conservative con men since the 70s in an attempt to create a loyal voter base that doesn't care about their politicians causing the worst wealth inequality ever.
Basically the dumbest people on earth have been fooled into attacking straw men instead of being capable of forming associations of cause and effect in reality.
ITT: a bunch of Americans struggling to contain their simmering rage in order to formulate a coherent response.
Seriously though, I'm also European and OP's little screed (which I skimmed after hitting a speed bump in paragraph 4) rings true to me.
A very recent example: the literal bloodthirstiness surrounding the healthcare executive's murder. This really took me aback, not gonna lie. Made me very, very glad I'm not American. For a few days I even reconsidered what I'm doing here. After all, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near such a baying mob if it were in the street.
In answer to the question, loads of books have already been written on it. For example, Ezra's Klein's Why We're Polarized. Didn't read it but I think he makes an argument for changing political incentives because of party re-alignment. A bit unsatisfying.
My first intuition is that it's a reflection of America's declining status in the world. A bit like a guy who's lost his wife and his job, America is going off the rails because it's losing its position as Top Dog in the world. Exhibit A in the genre: Russia. But then this can't be quite everything. After all, Britain lost an absolutely colossal empire and stayed pretty sane. Japan and Germany bounced right back from total national humiliation, too.
Other theories, then. A subconscious awareness of impending ecological collapse propelled by America's uniquely egregious overconsumption? An absence of a decent civil war for 150 years? Not the case for Europe! Maybe you're just itching to kill each other because it's been such a while?
As an American, I have despaired every day since the election about where we are headed. My hope is that, as in past times when we have lost our collective minds, we will find a way to self correct.
Know that nearly half of all voters did NOT want this direction and many will be mounting a vigorous fight against fascism.
Its going ti be ugly, though. I also despair for Europe who are about to see their fascists voices amplified to a very high volume.
guns are popular and legal in America to the point where you can't even safely walk alone in public during the night or safely send your kid to school
Absolutely untrue, hardly ever seen a gun in public that wasn't on a cop. Born and bred in Oklahoma (extremely conservative), worked in South Chicago (gangbangers everywhere) and now live in NW Florida (conservative again). And I've been in a lot of scary places and ran with seriously sketchy people when young.
About half of guns deaths are suicides. Most of the rest are gangs doing gang shit or interpersonal violence. Most murder victims knew their killer, anything but random.
Year in, year out, CDC stats have vehicular death at the same numbers as gun deaths. Stay away from shitty people and places, don't kill yourself, you're far more likely to die in or by a car. That scares the crap out of me, yet no one talks about it because it's normal.
Interesting anecdotes. As a pretentious European (who has visited plenty of America), Oklahoma is my idea of Peak Awful USA. Like a worse version of Texas with even more capital punishment. But of course that's just generalization and you sound cool!
Suicides should definitely be taken out of the baseline gun statistics IMO.
An honest and true comment on the Internet about guns, pack it up boys I've seen it all. Maybe we should do something about this car problem though? !=S
I suspect what you're seeing is the increased frequency of vulgar American bigotry showing up in mass media, thanks to the unfiltered exposure of their behavior.
But I have to point out... this isn't something new in the American psyche. Keep in mind that America has always been a deeply hateful and bigoted place. Go back to the years following 9/11 and look at how many mosques got burned. Consider that Congress banned French Fries in the cafeteria because the French PM wouldn't toss in with our genocidal Iraq invasion.
Go back further than that, and you've got horrifying police violence aimed at African Americans, Latinos, and East Asians going back... centuries. All endorsed by a parochial upper class that funneled money to Apartheid South Africa, Nun-raping Contra Rebels in Nicaragua, and Fascist Mafiosos crawling all over the Mediterranean during the Years of Lead.
Our mass media has been overflowing with bigotry from modern day Steven Crowder all the way back to Father Coughlin's antisemitic rants during the Great Depression.
America is a deeply rotten country full of awful people. And while we're hardly alone in that regard, we export so much of that vileness abroad that its hard for outsiders to ignore.
America doesn’t often follow international law, because they often get away with acting poorly.
When a country has the largest economy and the strongest military and does not have neighbours that are equal to it in power they tend swing their weight around.
Same thing can be seen with Russia, China and India.